Saturday, October 20, 2012

I'd walked the creek banks in search of that bug,And when I saw that sucker he'd run,And when he'd run I was having fun,Cuz my feet would be a slippin and a slidin in that mud,The chase between my muddy feet and that little bug.

Its a poem I wrote expressing the thrill of hunting snakes as a boy. Not to kill, but to catch and admire and eventually release back to it's habitat. It was exciting, fun, and sometimes a bit dangerous. It seems at a young age I was attracted to "off the beaten path" types of adventures. I did most of my snake hunting with my good friend Bobby, who still hunts snakes to this day with his son. This You Tube video shows Bobby and his son Nicholas slippin and slidin in Kansas in 2012, Lost Tapes Field Herping Adventure. I seem to always find the time and energy to embark on a trip of some kind. Mostly it is backpacking in Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas (where I live) or exploring the Barrier Islands off the coast of Mississippi in a 12 foot wooden drift boat I built, and other travels. Here is a link to a few of the adventures I've taken, The Portal. But a long distance cruise in the ocean was always gnawing away in the back of my head. In 2009 I bought a sailboat potentially capable of making such a trip. I say "potentially" because it was a wreck and needed a lot of work. So, I got busy and worked, I mean, really worked on it. Five years later and I am ready to take that trip. Here is a link to a web site I created to document the work on S/V Mary Annie, Hallberg Rassy Rasmus Project. Early next year, I will leave from Little Rock, Arkansas, the nice small town I call home, in Mary Annie and float down the Arkansas and Mississippi Rivers to the Gulf of Mexico. I will zig zag my way through the offshore oil rigs and make my way down the Florida coast to the Dry Tortugas, then hop over to Cay Sals Bank, and over to the Bahamas where my brother Pete will join me at Nassau. We will cruise the bahamas together for 3 weeks before dropping him off in Georgetown and reset the compass heading and just go. I will document my travels on S/V Mary Annie on this blog, The Adventures of Mary Annie. Keep on Walkin the Creek Banks.